Sacrifices to the Football Gods?
We just had a summer of 90-degree temps with very high humidity, persisting for weeks without letup. It was the most thoroughly enervating conditions I’ve ever lived in for any length of time - and this after decades of living in California Central Valley 100-110 degree temps with very low humidity.
Oh - I’m in Connecticut now. Not exactly the deep south. Towns here had to open cool-down centers for older folks and people without adequate AC to hydrate and cool down. There were fatalities.
I really love the responses here of unthinking “You can’t handle ______? Oh, gosh, poor baby!” from people who are either 20 and never going to die or just otherwise clueless.
In MN here. Air-conditioning wasn’t commonplace where I grew up until the sixties. I don’t remember ever having school cancelled for heat or cold. You literally had to be unable to open your front door for snow in order to get a day off from school. Icy roads would be the other exception.
And I don’t remember any advice from the teachers to stay in the shade during recess or to drink lots of water. Maybe they gave it, I dunno, but it was just not remarkable to me or any other kids I can remember. We probably already knew about how to deal with the heat and didn’t need the public service announcements.
The only time I remember having recess in the gym was when it was waaay below zero. And that was probably more for the supervisor’s comfort than for us kids.
My husband and I were just reminiscing about cars without air and how you’d dress in your finest and roll up the windows to drive on a dusty gravel road to a church with no air-conditioning. There you’d attend a wedding and sit and watch everybody soaking wet in their good clothes.
People go about their business if there is no alternative available. Now that we have alternatives we expect them to always be available.
Our marching band marched in long-sleeved wool uniforms with the tall, furry hats until the sixties and we could afford something more weather appropriate! No busses following along, no spray bottles because it spoiled the aesthetics.
Aye. A hearty bunch were we. 
Part of the problem this year was that Minneapolis started school a week earlier than they used to. Normally kids were out of school until the day after Labor Day. This allowed them to miss most of the really hot weather and to attend the State Fair. The powers that be decided that kids needed an extra week to prepare for their standardized exams, and for some reason they thought that week should be the last week of traditional summer. Stupid pricks.
Yeah, people (including kids) today are less willing to put up with weather-related discomfort than in the past, but bureaucrats are also less likely to use common sense.
“We put up with worse than this when I was a child” - and apparently don’t remember how miserable you were doing it, do you all?
Try again, sunshine. I live in Columbia, SC. A summer day that doesn’t hit at least 95% humidity is a rarity. And I run in it.
It’s been an absolutely bizarre summer - I don’t think we’ve hit 100 at all. That would be the first year that I can remember where that’s happened. Last year we topped out at 107.
Being miserable builds character
I grew up in Miami and don’t recall ever having a day off for excessive heat. I can think of a few occasions where it rained so hard that absences were retroactively excused (of course my parents never let me stay home just because of a little torrential downpour, so that was always upsetting).
How would the South be better equipped to deal with hot weather? AC? Yeah, we didnt have that when I was in school, and I’m in my 30s.
I can understand cancelling becasue of snow, since there is often no way to quickly clear the roads for the buses. I assume everyone in Minn owns a pair of shorts, though.
I’ve not heard of very many school-aged children dying of it while sitting in a classroom on a 90-degree day, no.
98-100? I’d cancel.
Like I said, they didn’t cancel at 90. They cancelled at 96-98. And while sitting here in my comfortable office that day, I IM’d my co-worker that TWC was showing: 96’ Feels like 104’.
If it was that hot, then it makes sense. The difference between 90 and 98 is huge.
In Portland, Oregon, they cancel school with the threat of four snowflakes on the grass.
Wait, the OP’s article refers to today and tomorrow. When you say “that day”, which day were you talking about?
With what? Nothing you said addresses what I said.
Until the '60s? Pussy. We still had those uniforms in my rural, western Wisconsin high school in the '90s. (I graduated in 1995.) About the only time you actually wanted to be in one was homecoming. I remember one sleety, snowy, absolutely gross October evening that I actually didn’t curse that damn wool jacket.
People in the South didn’t start going to school after they invented air conditioning. People here went to school when it was over 100 and at 99% humidity. All the time.
Ah, there was discussion of cancelling earlier in the week. I see the article is talking about today, where a moment ago at 3:16pm, TWC says 94°F FEELS LIKE 97°. Was worse a couple of hours ago.
Have to figure it it was pressure from the teachers and admins, like “Are you fucking nuts? We’re not getting anything done in this heat. Stop the madness!”
As mentioned it was only the schools that had no AC that closed. This is also the first time I can remember schools closing here for that reason.